A Walk on the Dark Side

Come to the Dark Side

There's chocolate...

I signed up for a chocolate making class to break up the monotony of my life, which consists of sleep, work, and working out. This is Craig's joke. "What are you doing today?" he asks. "Oh yeah, sleep, work, work out." Sigh... Today it will be sleep, work, eat chocolate. Oh yeah, I do that every day too.

But I don't usually make it myself and I discovered a local chocolate shop that focuses on all natural, organic ingredients and teaches classes to wanna be chocolatiers. I explained to Craig that one day when we have honey coming from our ears from his bee farming, I'll be able to make and sell fancy organic chocolate and we'll be thousandaires. 

Wanna learn too? Of course you do. I'll show you one quick tip to making your own holiday chocolate treats - easy peasy.  First you have to purchase your dark chocolate callets. Apparently that's a fancy word for high-end chocolate chips. That link will take you to an option. We did learn a bit about chocolate and how it's made. 

Chocolate makers start with the cocoa pod and the seeds of the pods are our cocoa beans. They are roasted, fermented on banana leaves, dried and shelled. The resulting product is called cocoa nibs.

The nibs are ground into a cocoa liquor (no alcohol involved) and separated into the cocoa mass (solids) and cocoa butter. Dark chocolate consists of the cocoa mass, the cocoa butter and sugar. If something is 60% cocao, it is 40% sugar. The percentage represents how much is from the cocoa bean and how much is sugar. Milk chocolate is cocoa mass, cocoa butter, sugar and milk. White chocolate is cocoa butter, milk, and sugar.

To make a chocolate bark, say for nuts or peppermint or candied pumpkin and ginger, follow these instructions. Measure out 2 cups of callets and put into a microwavable bowl. Heat on high for 30 seconds, then take out and stir with a spatula. Repeat 30 second intervals of heating/stirring for a total of 3 minutes. Your callets should be melted and smooth. Stir and add 1/2 cup more of cold callets to the melted chocolate. Stir until melted. Using a candy thermometer, stir the chocolate until the temperature of the chocolate is 88-90 degrees F. This may take several minutes of stirring. 

Once the chocolate has reached the correct temperature, stir in your desired flavors. Nuts, dried fruits, peppermint candies, cinnamon candies, granola, ginger and pumpkin, or, my favorite - crushed coffee beans. I had to make do with what was available in the class. Pour it onto a sheet of parchment paper and allow to set up. In this photo, my chocolate was still too thick, I should have made it much thinner by banging the pan on the counter. I sprinkled on top but in the future I would prefer to stir it in. When it is set up, just break into pieces and serve. Good for 6 months, do not refrigerate.

After all of that cooking and eating, we better take a walk through the neighborhood. I want to see the Halloween decorations anyway. Aren't these Casper's pesky uncles? They look up to no good.

Here's the jungle house. I don't know if they are highly introverted and hiding from the world or avoiding yard work but they have a forest in the front yard.

Danger lies in the darkness and watches me, waiting to pounce. The evil these creatures harbor exudes from their beady eyes. 

This harbinger of death writhes on the ground, consumed by some inner spirit as it attempts to lure me in with a warm, fuzzy belly. Touch it, I dare you.

I ran screaming from it, as it attempted to trap me by entangling itself around my legs. Finally, I found myself back under the safety of my own front window, which bears the new wreath, artfully hung right behind the porch light so no one can see it. I am not complaining.

The next day brings light and a trip to the farm. There is not much to do as we wait for it to be chipped and plowed. But Fred called to ask us out for a drink. So we went to say hello. "Hello, Fred. It's good to see there's still some life left in you." He hugged me as if he hadn't seen a human in a week. He hadn't.

That's no speck, that's my husband. Craig climbed the hill to gather mulch for our boys in the pond. They and we are patiently (or not) waiting for things to start happening on this land. It's so quiet, I could just lie down and take a nap.  This photo reminds me of Little House on the Prairie when the girls come running down the hill. Run, Craig, run. 

He didn't stumble on the way down, even if it would have made my day and completed my LHoP reference. Next he waded into the little bit of water in the pond to give the boys a drink. They've been tied up because every time we get a storm they think they have to hunker down in the pond. All that brown, barren land...

I don't know about you but I'm ready for it to look like this. Fred needs friends. Apple trees, pecan trees, pumpkin vines, corn mazes and a crazy old lady covered in chocolate.

Until next time...